Early Solid Food Tied to Better Sleep for Baby

Infants introduced to solid foods at an earlier age slept longer through the night, while infants with later introduction to solid food were more likely to have sleep problems, researchers found.
But recommendations from the U.K. National Health Service and National Childhood Trust seem to dispute this claim, with the latter citing a study that found no difference in total sleeping time at 9 months between infants who had solid foods introduced before and after age 6 months.
But the authors noted that the study also included a detailed validated sleep questionnaire that was completed on 15 occasions for the child from 3 months to 3 years.
The EAT trial was comprised of the early introduction group, which continued to breastfeed while six allergenic foods were introduced, and the standard introduction group, which were instructed to exclusively breastfeed to around age 6 months and consumed no food in that period, according to British infant feeding guidelines.
Researchers derived the sample from 1,225 participants who completed the final 3-year questionnaire -- 618 in the standard introduction group and 607 in the early introduction group.
In an intention-to-treat analysis, early introduction was associated with 16.6 minutes longer sleep per night at age 6 months.
The early introduction group also experienced a mean of 9.1% fewer night feedings (95% CI 4%-14%) compared with the standard introduction group.
They also found that families in the standard introduction group were more likely than those in the early introduction group to report a small problem (OR 1.2, 95% CI 1.05-1.41) or a very serious problem (OR 1.8, 95% CI 1.22-2.61) with their child's sleep.
The study was supported by the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA), the Davis Foundation, and the UK National Institute for Health Research.
Lack and co-authors disclosed no relevant relationships with industry.

Infants introduced to solid foods at an earlier age slept longer through the night, while infants with later introduction to solid food were more likely to have sleep problems, researchers found.

Moreover, families of infants who followed the standard introduction of solid food were more likely to report a sleep problem with their children compared to families with earlier food introduction, reported Gideon Lack, MB, BCh, of King’s College London, and colleagues in JAMA Pediatrics.

They performed a secondary analysis of the Enquiring About Tolerance (EAT) trial, which was originally designed to examine the effects of early food introduction on the development of food allergies. But the authors noted that the study also included a detailed validated sleep questionnaire that was completed on 15 occasions for the child from 3 months to 3 years.

“To our knowledge, we show for the first time in a randomized clinical trial setting that, consistent with the belief of many parents, the early introduction…

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